ipad 2 is coming March 11! $499~!

*33%thinner and up to 15 percent lighter

*two cameras

*10-hour battery life

*one A5 chip mean iPad can do twice the work at once

*up to nine times the graphics performance

*LED backlighting makes everything you see remarkably crisp, vivid, and bright

Can not resist to buy.

Amazon launched on Monday ( Nov 22) a new iPhone App for with advanced price comparison features on-the-go. Is this the straw that broke the camels back?  Will window shopping now be the only and main behavior for users shopping in the future? Has the Check-in replaced the Check-out?  Consumers look through the merchandise like they would through catalogs, but instead of buying it in that store, they hit the button on Amazon, buy it and have it delivered right to their home by the time you get there. This new change of purchasing behavior has evolved considerably with the growth of Smart Phones. Recently it was published that over 60% of users with Smart Phones will do some kind of product search in-store. Google recently launched its own new shopping product called Boutiques.com, and this wave of new eCommerce sites that incorporate mobile and offers is really exploding.

Recently, I have been seeing a lot of local supermarkets migrating to self-serve check-outs to cut the costs at the cash register  and make the flow quicker for people to move through the check-out lanes when congested.  It took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to use the automated system at Food Emporium and Home Depot, but once I figured it out, It found it quite convenient. But is it more convenient then just doing a quick product search, buying the product and having it delivered to my home.

Like many of the Retail brands, Food Emporium is doing its best to meet these online challenges with its own Online Shop, and FREE Delivery for sales over $75.  They have their own strategy for coupons and they have a great methodology of pick-up vs. delivery for making it convenient for their shoppers, but is it enough?

When I searched on Google for Home Depot and clicked on the link, Google kept me within Google’s index for my first couple of searches and clicks on Home Depot. I thought I was crazy when I was navigating within Home Depot’s site, but the URL string in my search bar was still Google? What does Home Depot thing of this? Google is now doing analysis of the users behavior in the site even after the search that is beyond just the lead. They seem to be pushing the envelop to gathering information that is beneficial for them. Google is trying to build deep information even before you can enter the online site of the Retailer for their own competitive advantage ( see diagram)

Retail brands are going to have to come up with new ways of assuring they not only have the right low price, but also the right “stickiness” in their apps to get users to use them over the Amazon’s of the world.  With Google running the search show, even when users go to the Retail Brand via the Web, Google is hanging on as long as possible to gather information on the user, making it potentially even more difficult for even Retail brands to understand holistically that first step.

In addition, this new era is one of optimized fufillment  where delivery and convenience is potentially the winning card.

2010 seems to be the year of the social promotion. 50% off for this or 90% off for that, if you register for the goods prior is the model that has worked so well for Groupon, but nitche players like Gilt.com, LivingSocial, Yipit and a variety of others are now making it easier for users  to find these promotions and coupons related to a location in real-time. This combined with the behavior of social recommendations and purchase history of your “Friends” will add even another unique dimension on the behaviour of online shopping on the go.

Even though Facebook seems to be quite quiet when it comes to eCommerce and one-click to buy shopping, they did have an unique release that better integrates the social graph as part of a sign-on process recently for mobile.  Once they also add this one-click to buy and make it easier to find products and services on-the-go, they will become another “Guerilla in the Room” that makes it more and more difficult for the Bricks-and-Mortars” to control that check-out experience.

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Amazon Price Comparison App Aims At Brick-and-Mortar Stores
by Mark Walsh, November 23,2010

Amazon will use the iPhone as a vehicle for snagging more business from brick-and-mortar stores this holiday season. With the company’s new price comparison app for the iPhone launched Monday, users can scan a product barcode, snap a picture of an item, or say a product’s name to find out if they can get a better deal from Amazon.

If they choose to go with Amazon, they can then make a purchase directly through the Price Check app and have it delivered to their home. That’s a clever way to try to take sales away from physical store rivals while shoppers are strolling down their aisles.

“For example, a customer may be shopping for a toy in a toy store and decide to compare the in-store price of the item to Amazon.com and other online merchants using Price Check,” explains Amazon in its announcement. But the third-party merchants online are limited to those that sell through Amazon.

That’s not the same as a popular app like Red Laser, acquired by eBay in June, which lets users scan a product barcode to compare pricing and stock across multiple online and physical stores. Amazon’s new app is essentially comparing its own pricing against that of the store someone is shopping at.

“While we love the search and quick purchase options, the [Amazon] ultimately isn’t that useful because it only allows users to compare a single store price with the prices of Amazon and its sellers,” noted Mashable. Once someone has already decided to brave the holiday crush by heading to a local store, there’s also a question of how often they would forgo an immediate purchase for a better price on Amazon.

The most likely instance for opting for Amazon would be where an item was out of stock and a shopper could use the Price Check to say the product name to find out if was available through the online retail giant. Or where the price difference was big enough to switch to Amazon despite adding in any shipping costs.

A report from research firm IDC Monday revealed that smartphones are changing consumer behavior. It found more than one-third of smartphone-carrying consumers (who represent 24% of all U.S. consumers) “are ready to use their mobile devices in ways that transform how they shop everywhere, and in particular, how they shop in retail stores.” That includes searching for price and product information, comparing prices at nearby stores, and buying things.

IDC projected that mobile-shopping “warriors” and “warrior wannabes” will account for 28% or $127 billion of the $447 billion the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates U.S. consumers will spend this holiday season. Amazon itself said in its second-quarter earnings report in July that its mobile sales had surpassed $1 billion during the prior 12 months.

Brick-and-mortar retailers have released their own apps to take advantage of the smartphone explosion and aid in-store shopping. That includes major chains and department stores such as Target, which Monday was named “2010 Mobile Retailer of the Year” by Mobile Commerce Daily, Best Buy, JCPenney and Nordstrom.

Julie Ask, a mobile analyst at Forrester Research, noted that Amazon and Best Buy — which finished second and third behind Target as top retailer of 2010 — may actually have an edge when it comes to having more mobile-savvy customers.

“Both sell a lot of products that fall into the sweet spot for mobile — consumer electronics (one of the top activities for consumers on mobile devices around commerce is price comparisons — especially in the CE category) and books/DVDs,” she wrote in a blog post Monday. By creating an app patterned after customers’ mobile habits, Amazon is hoping to drive mobile revenues even higher.

Did any of you read the book, the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?  Study Karate? Practice, practice and practice and then you do not think about it.  Well this is a theme I think is interesting when we think of “Worlds Colliding and Mobile meets the Internet”.  We all know that mobile has its differences… smaller screen, personal, always on and with you everywhere you go.  But when it comes to the internet, I do beleive there is one  internet….  When will Interactive Marketers,  buyers find a routine where they just know about mobile as part of their daily routine/ budgets and not have to think about it as it blends into the Online, Social and overall marketing mix…results and synergies being symbiotic.

The debate of Cross-Media and mobile is what we made for this years theme at  Internet Marketing Conference- Mobile in NYC on Oct 12, 13th at the Helen Mills theater.   If you want to be involved, let me know….It is going to be a great event…. Stay tuned.

As I have just relocated part-time to NYC, I have decided to really look at my needs when it comes to internet and broadband TV.   As most people in my building  just use Warner Cable here in Brooklyn,  it is almost like a no-brainer to call up Warner and set-up an appointment  to use the service.

I called two weeks ago to set-up an appointment.  It was Tuesday. They said they would send over a Service guy to set it up on Sat.  The going rate for Internet Only was about $33/month + the installation and box of about $100+.  To get Wifi was an extra $5/month.  So my costs would be for unlimited internet at broadband speed at about $38/month

Well I had a set window to meet the guy from 2-5pm.  He never showed up.  When I called into Warner Cable they said that he did show up but could not connect to me by phone. So the value of me sitting at my place, Why did he not buzz? So I proceeded to call Warner Cable and got the IVR telling me to wait to 5pm to call. If he did show up at 2:15 like they said, and I waited 3 hours for nothing, it kind of pissed me off that on a beautiful Saturday, I waited for 3 hours at home for somebody not going to show up again and I would have never known it.

So in my call that finally got through to a person at 5:15pm, I rescheduled for Thurs Evening from 5~8pm.  He wanted to set me up on Weds from 2~5pm, but I said that I had to go to work and could not sit at home for 3H on a Weds Afternoon.

Sure enough, I get a call from the Warner Cable guy that he is at my place on Weds at 2:05pm.  ” Bloody Hell, I thought, I told them I would not be there.  So when I got home, I then spent another 30 min on the IVR to get to an operator to again tell me that I was scheduled for Weds, with no record for Thurs.  I would have to wait till the following Tues for the first available appointment.

This really pissed me off. As I have been without Internet now for 2weeks, I was getting frustrated, so I wanted to see what my other options were.

1) Can not go to another Cable Company as my Apartment Complex is only Warner.

2) What about getting one of the Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile hotspot cards…. This way I will not be locked to my home for my connectivity.

So I started my check.  As I have been having broadband connectivity problems with my phone and AT&T, I decided to go into Verizon first.  This is what they offer.

Verizon

1) MiFi can be purchased for $180 or a 2 year contract for about $40.9 for the little credit card box ( you get up to 5 connections and good 3G speeds. 4 hours of battery life)    The costs is what was interesting $40 for 250MB ($0.10 MB or  $100 G after) or $60 5MB ( $0.5MB or $50GB after), the costs were pretty high for Data, so I decided to do a real check of what my needs are per day approximately.

2) Get an Android device and use untethering.  Well they do offer all you can eat for about $30, but to connect to tether, they charge an additional $20/2GB.  So for $50 I can get about 2GB ( $0.5MB after).

So if you are a daily user of 2GB, then the tethering with the mobile device is not bad, without jumping to the $100′s of month for extra bandwidth.  The 5GB is about 150% the cost of Warner for the monthly installments, but it is still limited.

Apparently.

T-Mobile

1) With an Android device with $30 all you can eat package, apparently you can do Tethering…. So this might just be the right way to go for a home-hotspot, but also a hotspot on the go?

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Daily needs.

Besides my work that includes massive social media, emails and web browsing.  I do stream music and I do watch movies and video’s. So this is my system.  ( I will add a chart of my usage patterns later after I study it a bit more).   But to watch a move it is about 250M. So for 5G, you only get about 20 movies a month for Verizon.  This might just be enough…. email and social is so small with Data I felt I was I would be OK.

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What an opportunity for the Mobile Operators to destroy the Cable companies for home internet.  Just thinking since they do have location-based services to identify the cell towers that are in proximity to your home, why limit the bandwidth when you are at home.  Charge a special unlimited rate of  $60 month, and then have it kicked in to a limited amount on the Go.  This way it is easier to start to understand the loads on the network as users do not move that often.  Can really grow services that become truely wireless.

I will decide now over the course of the next couple of days,  Verizon, TMobile or Warner Cable……

I have been watching the trends of Twitter Applications, Browsers and Platforms over the last couple of months and this type of segmentation and convergence had emerged.

First of all, what has excited me and what I have been waiting for over the last year has been an application that handles automatic translation.

Given the fact that I speak both Japanese and English and have business in both Asia and here in North America, I have wanted to build a consistent cross-border  following on twitter.  I found that with the existing Twitter platform, the only way to do this is with two-accounts.  With my existing account, when I tweet in Japanese, I loose followers.  When I tweet in English, I have a hard time growing Japanese followers.

I mentioned this concept to the Digital Garage folks last February when I was in Japan, but they all laughed.  About a year ago during a Breakfast in Vancouver, Jeff Pulver ( Founder of 140conf.com, serial entrepreneur and VOIP visionary)  and I had a lot of fun with this by cutting segments from Google translate into twitter to go back and forth between English and Twitter.  Even when Jeff started to Tweet in Hebrew, he saw how this took conversations to the next level and really touched individuals on the other end.  I can not stop thinking of the smile on his face when he said ” This is amazing”. So this is really the state of now when we see the auto-translation of different languages for different countries or multi-lingual translations.

When I saw the announcement in April by Hootsuite I felt like they were really listening to the customer; as there must had been lots others like me with the same predicament.  In my mind this is a big move by the Hootsuite folks in their attempt  at this and even though we have not yet seen this capability on Facebook,  MARK MY WORDS….. This is going to be one of the most important features for them with their 500M users in the coming months.  If they do not buy Hootsuite, then they will do this timeselves by the end of the year.

Given the fact I would like to Tweet in both English and Japanese simultaneously,  I really thought this would be a feature that Twitter would release to the market.  Given that Google is so strong in language tools, and Google has a terrific product ( Google Translate), I was pretty sure we would see this from our friends at Google first. Even thought this would get quickly integrated into Google Buzz so that it scaled.   English language schools  have grown from the cottage industry base to a core part of  Japanese society.  With the growth of iPhone and Android devices cross-border,  I am sure this type of feature is going to be more and more important.

What we have seen is that our friends in Vancouver ( Hootsuite) have really looked to market differentiation with these translation tools.  It only makes sense as Vancouver is one of those multilingual communities, and even here in Canada most people have adopted the two-language way ( English, French).

This is what the Hootsuite folks have to say:

Need more ways to socialize? Seeking zen-like efficiency? Start by updating HootSuite for iPhone to clear your mind and make your social media experience more enjoyable. This update adds full localization in four languages to go along with the recently-released translation tools. Both are designed to help marketers, socializers, and internationalists understand the vibe about their brand, industry, and interests from all over the globe. Additionally, the release includes a kit full of new tools to help you stay on top of multiple social streams — and share the best parts with remarkable efficiency.  All the features are available in both the Lite (no-cost) and Full ($2.99 USD) versions of HootSuite for iPhone.

This may be a risky strategy for Hootsuite as unless they can get clients on both sides of the pond ( meaning that in order to really use the multilingual features, but send and received need a Hootsuite client) Twitter will just copy and improve on this. When Twitter does release its interfaces to support multilingual capabilities, where will this leave Hootsuite?

Secondly, when it comes to integration we are seeing many companies bring in all the different feeds into there Applications. Fring just announced with much success their Video-Call capability for mobile, Seesmic continues to be “Switzerland” with all of the different Feed integrations.  I have just been waiting for them to make the product opensource or open API’s… as we have started to see more of with Tweetdeck and the Buzz API.

So where does this leave us?  As Twitter sits in the middle of it all, it makes me wonder if Twitter has just become a proprietary TCP/IP-like bit pipe?   They made the move to build there user experiences by buying the Application company Atebits most recently, but they are in a  good position being in the middle.

The wildcard in this evolution in my mind is now the Browser.   So lastly, I must say that the convergence that starts to get interesting is now what Plug-ins and what enablers we start to see in the browser as it also has become a standalone application in its own right. Opera released its application for the iPhone and in weeks we have seen Millions of downloads.  They have developed a widget framework that has been adapted by several of the carriers now to promote services, application and advertising revenue from the Widgets.  JIL ( Joint Innovation Lab – Softbank, Verizon, China Mobile and Vodafone) have actively been starting to promote the cross border opportunities with widgets through there entire network of devices as a core driver for developers, but the fact still remains that over 50% of developers are now focued on iPhone Applications.

Opera has positioned themselves very nicely in this Application game and it is going to be interesting what the next big moves are?  Will Opera be aquired as part of the JV of JIL? Will Facebook buy Opera? or will we see the integration of Twitter and all these applications into Opera?  or will we see Opera buy Hootsuite?

The fact remains that in the Application space there is a lot of convergence going on.  What we have not heard much of these days for advanced integrated apps is Google.  They did have their flagship Google I/O conference several weeks back and it is exciting to see that they are really driving HTML5.  As HTML5 expands this gets very interesting from the standpoint of Application convergence.  Where will this all go with HTML5 ( See my next post)